Hearing Instruments Increase Happiness

Happiness is generally linked with pleasant memories of bygone days spent with the people we love. We generally do not think of hearing aids as a source of happiness, but they can truly help someone with hearing loss obtain the happiness they deserve from life.

Hearing aids help in significant improvements in relationships within family members and friends. Since hearing loss can be an isolating experience that can place a strain on personal relationships, hearing aids can help rectify this isolation by improving hearing and restoring pleasant conversations.

A survey by Hear-The-World foundation assessed four thousand adult individuals suffering from hearing impairment. The results indicated that around seventy percent of participants found hearing instruments to have a significant improvement in personal relationships.

Yet another positive result was reported by the organization named Hear-It, which assessed roughly all of the peer-reviewed studies on the beneficial uses of hearing instruments from the United States, Europe, as well as Australia. Majority of these articles reported a general enhancement in the standard of living of those affected with hearing loss, with a significant improvement in communal relationships.

Hearing aids also lead to improvements in vocational settings. The University of Texas recently conducted a study with individuals between the ages of 50 and 70. The results indicated that even after a mere use of a fortnight, those wearing hearing aids found improvements in their cognitive skills that helped them perform tasks far better in the workplace. They reported that hearing aids helped enhance their productivity in the workplace drastically.

Significant hearing loss can lead to losses of approximately $14,000 annually compared to those with no hearing impairment. The use of hearing aids can help prevent this loss.

Hearing loss can also lead to depression, as suggested by a study conducted by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. Their study reported that a mere 5% of the hearing population has depression, but more than 10% of those who have hearing loss that has not been treated suffer from depression. Furthermore, people who use hearing aids were found to have a lower chance of developing major depressive disorder compared to those with untreated hearing impairment at the same level of hearing loss.

Johns Hopkins conducted yet another study that reported that hearing impaired people aged between 18 to 69 years had a 57% likelihood of developing depression compared to those with no hearing loss. Overall, it can be concluded that introducing hearing aids into the life of someone with hearing loss can be a major source of happiness indeed!